TULSA, Okla. — The number of illegal immigrants in the Tulsa County Jail has plummeted in the past two years despite there being a surge of new illegal immigrants entering the U.S. through the southern border.
Two years ago, the Biden Administration sent a seven-page memo to jails like Tulsa County specifying that simply being an illegal immigrant in the U.S. is not enough to hold someone in custody and begin the deportation process, but instead, they must first commit another crime and go through the criminal justice system. That stipulation includes having access to bail.
“We have hundreds of illegals committing crimes in Tulsa County, and now when they qualify for bail, we can’t hold them. They bond out, and then they just disappear and never show up for court,” Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado told FOX23 News.
Under the Trump Administration, if an illegal immigrant ended up in custody, it was enough for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to begin examining their case and likely processing them for deportation.
Under the Biden Administration, multiple factors outside of someone’s status must be considered when it comes to handling illegal immigrants behind bars, including the gravity of the crime and previous criminal history. Those stipulations are in addition to consideration being given if the migrant is of advanced age, is their families primary caregiver or breadwinner, mentally ill, and/or qualifies for humanitarian aid and protections from the Federal government.
During the Trump Administration, without any of those stipulations, the ICE population was 6,144. More than 4,600 of those were simply in custody because they were in the U.S. illegally. Under the Biden Administration, the ICE population is 1,302 with 416 of them being in the jail simply for being undocumented immigrants.
“Theoretically, with the number of migrants at the border surging, our numbers in the jail should also be up, but this policy that we were given two years ago means we can’t enforce some of the laws we know have been broken,” Regalado said.
In the policy memo, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas states:
“We must exercise our discretionary authority in a way that protects civil rights and civil liberties.”
Mayorkas went on to state it will be up to ICE and the Federal government to determine if the arrested migrant will be held without bond, but Regalado said the Federal government is not processing requests to keep people behind bars in a timely manner.
He said instead, they are relying on the fact that if someone qualifies for bail, then that is good enough to determine that they don’t need to be held.
“We’ve dealt with everything from one illegal immigrant shooting at a Tulsa Police officer to drugs to a variety of crimes,” Regalado said. “They get a court date. They bond out, and then they disappear. All we can do is place a new warrant out for their arrest.”
At issue is two political schools of thought. Are these people “illegal immigrants,” or are they “undocumented migrants” who just entered the country the wrong way? Regalado said the law is clear, and he is not allowed to enforce what the law is today.
“Those are just terms people float around,” he said. “The law is clear, and right now, we cannot enforce it properly.”
Regalado said state lawmakers need to possibly consider laws that make it harder for illegal immigrants to get bail like American citizens, no matter the gravity of the crime.
He said too many of them run away from court dates and never go through the criminal justice system as the DHS policy presumes. Though ICE policy said it will consider deportation of an illegal immigrant after they go through the criminal justice system, he said too many of them run away and there never is a conviction or acquittal to complete the process.
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